With alot going on behind the scenes at Generation Bass, I managed to re-launch the mixtape concept. With many names still to come, we look at one of our own members again, this time the pioneer S X M B R A made his addition to the series.

S X M B R A

One of the main things that keeps fascinating me is the blurring line between science-fiction and reality. The rapid technological changes taking place in today’s world as well as the extreme, pre-collapse, manifestations of capitalism and growing inequality mirror the dystopian visions of the cyberpunk movement of the 1980s.

The 1980s inspired a wave of all kinds of dark music which contrasted with the sounds from the previous decades. Now, in a similar way, after the innocent optimistic 90s and the hyper-hedonistic 00s, a new dark era is taking shape around us, but this one is truly digital and the internet is changing everything around is that has existed before by continuous destruction and reconstruction of existing concepts and realities. Underground movements like cyberpunk, hiphop, goth and club culture are at the same time completely dead and completely alive online in the most absurd hybrid forms.

At the same time, the hyperreal experiences that we can have online and in movies and games, blurs the line between real and unreal, reducing ideas like rebellion to mere aesthetics that can be consumed from a safe distance. This is also my problem with traditional notions of dystopia and apocalypse. In many cases these are fantasies of the privileged afraid to loose their privilege. We constantly need to remind ourselves that for many other people in this world, people of color in particular, these visions have already been totally real for many generations.

The final trigger was a quote I came accross on Tumblr that says: “Ferguson Police Department exists to remind us all we are actually in the sci fi dystopian movies we used to watch on tv as children and comforted ourselves by thinking we were 100 year away from.”

This mixtape, combining music from scenes as far apart as the upcoming trax club avant-garde, chicago drill, vaporwave and alternative hardcore is the musical expression of that message..
Mixtape produced by S X M B R A in collaboration with Gideon.